Projects
Development of a peptide nucleic acids-based antisense technology to control bacterial disease by specifically blocking virulence genes Ghent University
Antibiotic resistant infections are currently the second cause of death worldwide, and aquaculture is a major source of antibiotic resistance genes in human pathogens. The aquaculture industry plays an important role in the world’s food supply. However, bacterial diseases cause major problems in aquaculture, with annual losses in the range of several billion US$. Controlling bacterial diseases in aquaculture is therefore essential for food ...
The role of elastin-derived peptides in the progression of arterial stiffness and cardiovascular disease with a focus on autophagy inhibition as contributing mechanism. University of Antwerp
The role of elastin-derived peptides in the progression of arterial stiffness with a focus on autophagy inhibition as contributing mechanism. University of Antwerp
Mapping the proteostatic collapse caused by aggregation-inducing bactericidal peptides KU Leuven
I was part of the effort to develop a novel class of antibiotics based on the concept that short aggregation-prone regions within the protein sequence drive amyloid-like protein aggregation. I developed antimicrobial peptides called Pept-Ins that trigger an aggregation cascade in bacteria resulting in the formation of inclusion bodies, the collapse of the proteome, and the death of bacteria. Now, my goal is to better understand the ...
The in vivo role of quorum sensing peptides in metastatic colorectal cancer. Ghent University
Quorum sensing peptides are small protein-like compounds, which are used by certain bacteria to communicate with each other. However, this phenomenon is not limited to the bacteria themselves: recent research demonstrates that these compounds interact with human cells as well. As such, these particular compounds potentially can explain the role of bacteria in/on our body in health and disease. Several quorum sensing peptides have recently ...
From a basic understanding of the interactions of antibacterial peptides with the outer membrane towards next generation enzybiotics. KU Leuven
A microfluidic platform to screen engineered lasso peptides for therapeutic potential KU Leuven
Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) are a rapidly expanding class of chemically and structurally-diverse bacterial natural products. Many exhibit therapeutically important biological activities, such as antibiotic, antifungal, insecticidal, immunomodulating and anti-cancer activities. The relaxed substrate specificity of RIPP biosynthetic enzymes, together with the increasing availability of methods to ...
Development of MALDI-TOF MS based discrimination of bacterial strains within species for fast prediction of antibiotic resistance and for efficient prevention of nosocomial transmission. Ghent University
Application of MALDI-TOF (MT) technology revolutionized the field of diagnostic microbiology for the identification of bacterial isolates cultured from clinical samples. In a few seconds, MT generates complex peptide spectra from isolates and compares a simplified spectrum to a database of spectra from known species to obtain an identification. However, the most important information for the clinician, i.e. the susceptibility of the isolate ...
Nucleation, cross-reactivity and structure of bacterial functional amyloids Vrije Universiteit Brussel
fibrils is not restricted to off-pathway protein misfolding events seen
in pathological amyloidosis but is also found as the native
conformation of a wide range of pro- and eukaryotic proteins referred
to as functional amyloids (FA). A significant fraction of the FAs
produced by prokaryotes are related to the persistence and virulence
...